Tag Archives: Customer Experience

News

Medallia launches four breakthrough AI innovations

Medallia, the global leader in customer and employee experience, has announced at its Experience ‘24 conference four ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) innovations that will fundamentally change how organisations can personalise customer and employee experiences.

Ask Athena, Intelligent Summaries, Smart Response, and Themes will further enable leading brands to democratise insights, activate employees, and individualise experiences using cost-effective, responsible, and scalable AI and intelligent automation. All four solutions will become available to Medallia customers as part of Medallia Experience Cloud.

“These incredible new generative AI solutions mark a fundamental shift in customer experience, moving from looking at data and analytics, to taking action, in real-time, through automation, to deliver a personalised, instant experience,” said Joe Tyrrell, CEO at Medallia. “We are delivering against our vision of a future driven by responsible AI, built to continually adapt real-time to new information at every point across the customer and employee journey, dynamically training itself with each new signal to personalise every experience and to empower humans to be more effective on the critical tasks they take on.”

The four new solutions will transform how companies use generative AI to deliver more personalised experiences across every interaction:

  • Ask Athena: Simply Ask Athena a question and get a quick, intuitive, and informed answer, generated using an organisation’s experience data, or any relevant data points. Ask Athena understands the context of the question and returns an AI summarisation of the results and additional data, graphs, charts, and more information. It’s easy to see the performance of a specific business line, go deeper to regional or customer segments, or drill down to detailed feedback records and see suggested actions — all through easy, conversational questions.
  • Intelligent Summaries: Save employees thousands of hours with AI composed summaries of any interaction, profile, and more, that include details that matter most to those who serve customers or employees — like reasons for contact, issue resolution, and customer satisfaction. Intelligent Summaries eliminates the need for employees to do the tedious work of reviewing millions of records and instead delivers concise and accurate summaries, appearing exactly where employees need them in records and record lists, and can be utilised across the entire experience platform.
  • Smart Response: Provide a personalised, empathetic, and accurate response to customers, in real-time, with Medallia’s generative AI Smart Response. Organisations can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by empowering every employee to close the loop faster than ever. Employees can spend less time writing responses and more time ensuring everyone who should get a response does, all using generative AI to automatically create contextually correct and personalised responses to specific feedback. Employees have full control as responses are both editable and can be sent by individuals, providing control over the final response and an easy opportunity to tailor offers or services even further when needed.
  • Themes: Achieve faster time to insight with more granular, action-oriented Themes that now leverage generative AI, complete with Intelligent Summaries generated on each Theme. Employees of all levels are now able to identify issues faster and streamline root cause analysis and data exploration. With the ability to track emerging trends in reporting over time, organisations can easily investigate how and why KPIs change.

Since launching AI-powered Text Analytics in 2008, Medallia has continuously developed enterprise-grade, secure AI capabilities, including speech analytics, speech-to-text, AI-powered automations, experience orchestration and more. Like those capabilities, the new generative solutions are built with enterprise-grade control to protect data at every layer and serve the complex business needs of global brands.

Medallia has created an AI Moderation Council to promote innovation while maintaining ethical, responsible, safe, and inclusive use of AI for its experience products. The Council is made up of members from Medallia’s Legal, Privacy & Security, Compliance, Engineering, Product, and Customer organisations.

“The AI Moderation Council reflects the importance we place on our customers’ data privacy, security, and responsible use of their data,” said Simonetta Turek, Chief Product Officer at Medallia. “To further these efforts, we are also launching an AI Advisory Board that will include participation from our customer and partner communities, creating a space where the exchange of learnings, challenges, and best practices can be shared, as well as a focus on the responsible and ethical use of AI.”

For more information about these solutions and Medallia’s leadership in AI, visit our AI Leadership page.

News, Tech, Technology

Medallia launches Agile Research as addition to Medallia Experience Cloud

The integration of Agile Research provides a self-service solution for market research and insights teams and the ability to align with existing CX programmes

Medallia, the global leader in customer and employee experience, today announced the launch of Medallia Agile Research, a fully self-service advanced market research tool that will be fully integrated into Medallia Experience Cloud. This innovative product will be available for all Medallia Experience Cloud users to enable customer experience, research, and insights teams to leverage one unified platform to measure and analyse consumer, market and brand insights for a comprehensive view of the business ecosystem.

Designed for self-service, Medallia Agile Research enables researchers to move quickly and iterate on demand for one-off surveys, competitive analysis, and brand/product research. These capabilities allow organisations to quickly learn about any topic, all while protecting the integrity of the company’s historical data. Advanced statistical analysis enables researchers to go beyond simple analysis to get to the root of insights and recommend actions that will deliver ROI.

“The introduction of Medallia Agile Research brings an intuitive, easy to use, self-service market research solution to companies who want to move quickly to conduct market and competitive research, and iterate changes quickly, without invalidating the historical data of their customer retention and customer experience platform. Now, companies get the best of both worlds directly in the Medallia platform, which is unique for experience management platforms,” said Simonetta Turek, Chief Product Officer at Medallia. “The world’s most trusted and admired brands already use Medallia to power their customer and employee experience programmes and by providing them a completely self-service tool in Agile Research, they can obtain cost savings by not having to leverage separate platforms for market research.”

By integrating Agile Research within Medallia Experience Cloud, companies can take advantage of a variety of benefits, including:

  • Reduced Cost: Organisations can save money by consolidating high-cost platforms and by bringing agency-driven research studies in-house.
  • Speed-to-Insights: Easy-to-use DIY surveys deliver fast, quality research insights to help brand teams keep pace with rapid changes in the marketplace and deliver insights to stakeholders on how to increase customer loyalty.
  • Global Reach: Access to millions of respondents worldwide (in 80+ languages) through a third-party panel, with administration fully integrated in the platform.
  • Unified Platform: Break down silos and connect insights from across the organisation, capturing and analysing customer data all with one source of truth in Medallia Experience Cloud.

For more information about Medallia Agile Research, visit our site at: www.medallia.com/agile-research

 

Appointments, News

Acoustic Appoints Mark Cattini CEO

SaaS industry veteran with over 20 years of CEO experience to lead next phase of innovation and growth

Acoustic, a global marketing and customer experience provider for B2C brands, today announced that Mark Cattini has been named Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective immediately. Mark has served on the company’s Board of Directors since May 2022 and joins Acoustic as it evolves the marketing digital experience for its customers to meet the growing needs of today’s businesses. Mark brings on board Adam Stewart as Chief Technology Officer and Jay Schaufeld as Chief People Officer, underscoring the company’s continued investment in its technology and talent.

Acoustic helps customer-obsessed brands build closer customer connections with hyper-personalized, multichannel experiences. Mark’s appointment, as well as Acoustic’s recent investment from Francisco Partners, will accelerate the company’s vision to provide powerful technology to meet the needs of B2C brands across retail, financial services, insurance, tech and telecom, travel and hospitality, and more.

“I am thrilled to be asked by the Board to lead Acoustic as CEO during an exciting time for the company and the marketing industry as a whole,” said Mark Cattini, CEO of Acoustic. “Businesses today require easy-to-use solutions that can be quickly deployed to drive more value to their customers. Acoustic is uniquely positioned to help brands deliver personalized digital experiences and provides robust behavioral analytics to optimize customer journeys to increase loyalty and growth. I’m delighted to join Acoustic as it accelerates this platform vision on a global scale and look forward to working with our customers and partners to realize the next phase in our strategic growth.”

Mark brings over two decades of experience as a successful CEO at enterprise software companies, including MapInfo (NASDAQ: MAPS), Autotask, and ClickSoftware.

“As businesses grapple with market uncertainty, new privacy regulations, and evolving consumer expectations, they require a technology partner that can support their needs today while future-proofing their business for the challenges of tomorrow,” said Jared Hendricks, Senior Managing Director of Centerbridge Partners. “With Mark’s appointment as CEO, Acoustic is better positioned than ever to support businesses across industries as they tackle these challenges head-on. Acoustic’s combination of best-in-breed technology and proven SaaS leadership positions the company as a next-generation leader within this space. We’re thrilled to have Mark join as CEO to further Acoustic’s mission to bring hyper-personalized digital experiences to life.”

Mark along with Adam Stewart and Jay Schaufeld start their roles immediately. Adam spent 17 years at Autotask/Datto in the role of SVP, Engineering while Jay brings over 25 years of experience as a human resources leader, including serving as Chief People Officer at ClickSoftware.

About Acoustic, L.P.
Acoustic, L.P. helps businesses close the digital experience gap by giving them a holistic view into the customer experience and enabling them to deliver personalized experiences based on consumer needs and preferences. The Acoustic portfolio of products helps businesses across industries to grow customer lifetime value with award-winning technology and unbeatable client success teams. Learn more about the Acoustic portfolio at www.acoustic.com.

News

A quarter of UK webmasters worry web platforms stifle sales – Danebury Research survey reveals chief CMS concerns-

Odense, Denmark, 17th January 2022, a cross-sector survey conducted by Danebury Research and sponsored by Umbraco, has revealed that a quarter of respondents believe their company websites are costing them business. Over half of the survey participants said they need to extend website functionality by connecting to new technologies that enable analytics, personalisation and transactions. Almost a third (30%) report that their companies are paying for CMS features that will never be used. Despite these findings, 32% of respondents are delaying migrating to new content management systems (CMS) and digital experience platforms (DXP) that would allow them to gain the required functionality to meet customer demand.

What drives CMS selection:
The survey, conducted among 150 UK decision-makers with responsibility for websites, working at organisations with between 100 and more than 10,000 employees, found that the most important factors influencing CMS selection were the cost (43%), familiarity with the brand (35%) and personal recommendation of the CMS (35%).
For enterprises with more than 10,000 employees, brand familiarity, ongoing support and security updates, the ease and cost of adding new features and the ability to support multiple languages, heavily influence CMS selection.
Software licence fees and reduced time to market were the most important factors in CMS selection for enterprises with 5,000 – 10,000 employees.

CMS evolution:
Over half (54.7%) of the respondents across all sectors agreed that they need to be able connect company websites with additional technology to increase functionality as their businesses evolve.
When asked about new demands on CMS, over half of the survey participants (50.7%) agreed that their websites need to deliver personalisation, analytics and transactions, in addition to the usual content management. This finding was highest among respondents from the retail (68%), manufacturing (56.3%) and technology (50%) sectors.

Empowering marketing teams:
Almost half of all respondents (46%) agreed that they need to empower their marketing teams to rapidly adjust content in response to customer needs. This figure rose to 60% in the retail sector, just over half (53.3%) in the public sector, and half (50%) of respondents from the technology sector.

Kim Sneum-Madsen, CEO of Umbraco comments, “These survey findings indicate that organisations are leaning more heavily on their digital platforms and demanding more of their CMS providers as they expand their digital services to engage with customers on their preferred devices and in their local language.”

Chief CMS concerns:
When asked about their chief CMS concerns, the ease with which new features could be added over time, the cost of doing so and the lack of internal development skills to enable the organisation to get the best out of the CMS were cited most frequently. For respondents from public sector and digital agencies, slow performance of the CMS was also a major concern.
Ensuring ongoing support and security updates for CMS is the chief concern shared by all organisations with between 500 and over 10,000 employees.

Almost half (48%) of respondents from the technology and retail sectors cited lack of in-house coding skill as their main CMS concern. However, this issue may be exacerbated by their choice of CMS. Almost a quarter (24.7%) of all respondents from technology, public sector, digital agencies and the retail sector agreed that their current CMS made their organisation less attractive to talented developers.

Lock-in indications:
Almost a third (32% of respondents) agreed that they were staying with their current CMS and shortcomings of their websites because re-platforming would be too expensive, despite 30% of respondents agreeing that they are paying for CMS features that their organisation will never use. This figure rose to 40% of public sector respondents paying for unused features. Over half of respondents from all sectors (54.7%) agree that they will need to be able to be able to connect their website with additional technologies and functionalities as their businesses evolve.

Commenting on the Danebury Research findings, Kim Sneum-Madsen, CEO of Umbraco said, “Content management systems have had to evolve to enable organisations to deliver omnichannel engagement, transactions and personalisation. As a result, we’ve seen increased adoption of composable digital experience platforms, with CMS at the core, that allow organisations to integrate new technologies that meet fresh business requirements. However, this survey indicates that many organisations are stuck on digital platforms that no longer meet their needs. As an open-source CMS company, Umbraco’s mission is to make it as simple as possible for companies to extend their CMS by integrating technologies that serve their immediate business needs and provide the flexibility to adapt over time. We recently launched Umbraco Marketplace to help our customers to find technologies that easily integrate with Umbraco, and other composable DXPs, so that they can expand content, marketing and commerce capabilities. The survey findings strongly validate this strategy.”

Key findings from the Umbraco survey:
● 30% of respondents report that they are paying for CMS features they will never use
● Over half of respondents (54.7%) agree that they need to connect to new technologies to extend website functionality
● Half of survey respondents (50.7%) need their website to deliver personalisation, analytics and transactions, in addition to content
● A quarter (25.3%) of respondents believe their company websites are costing them business
● Just under a quarter of all respondents (24.7%) and 30% of public sector respondents believe their current CMS makes them less attractive to talented developers.
● Nearly a third (32%) of companies are making do with outdated CMS because they believe it would be too expensive to re-platform.
Kim Sneum-Madsen concludes, “We understand organisations’ reticence to move off monolithic CMS. However, over time, this strategy risks making them more vulnerable to market changes and new competitors that are using more nimble technology architectures that deliver what customers want. Moving to a composable digital experience platform offers a more sustainable route that avoids wasting budget on unused features and allows organisations to select, connect and invest only in technologies that deliver to the business and the bottom line.”

News

Acoustic Announces Strategic Growth Investment from Francisco Partners

Acoustic, a global marketing and customer experience provider for B2C brands, has obtained a strategic growth investment from Francisco Partners (“Francisco”), a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses. Existing investor Centerbridge Partners remains the primary equity holder in the company. 

Acoustic helps brands deliver over 120 billion personalized messages each year using its single, unified platform that combines marketing automation with deep digital experience analytics. Acoustic empowers businesses to create seamless, data-driven digital experiences across email, web, SMS/MMS, mobile push, WhatsApp, social media and more. 

“We are thrilled to announce this new investment from Francisco Partners. As more consumer interactions take place digitally, customer experience becomes the deciding factor for whether consumers engage with your brand,” said Dennis Self, CEO of Acoustic. “This investment validates our strategy for creating unified digital customer experiences at scale. It will also help accelerate our platform vision and continue to create highly personalized multichannel experiences through our product suite that connects consumers’ online interactions with the buying experience. We’re excited to be working with two top-tier investors, Francisco Partners and Centerbridge, as we continue to evolve our platform and offerings to enable a new generation of consumer marketing and experience capabilities.”  

“Brands and marketers are looking for more effective ways to continuously improve the overall consumer experience while simultaneously maximizing the performance and ROI on their marketing investment,” said Peter Gingold, Managing Director at Francisco Partners. “Acoustic’s unified marketing and experience platform uniquely positions the company to emerge as a next-generation leader within the $344.8 billion MarTech industry. We’re excited to join Centerbridge Partners and the Acoustic team to accelerate this vision and the delivery of innovative solutions to create exceptional, personalized customer experiences across several key industry verticals including retail, financial services, insurance, tech and telecom, travel and hospitality, and more.” 

“We are excited to partner with Francisco Partners, a world-class firm specializing in investments of technology companies that are leading the way in innovation and growth, who, like us, believe in Acoustic’s vision and the value of its powerful marketing and experience platform and supporting capabilities,” said Jared Hendricks, Senior Managing Director, and Chris Litchford, Managing Director, of Centerbridge Partners. “Acoustic is a demonstrated leader in an ever-evolving industry. We are committed to helping Acoustic operationalize and scale its solutions through our continued investment.”  

SVB Securities served as financial advisor to Acoustic. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as legal advisor to Acoustic. Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP acted as legal advisor to Francisco Partners. 

About Francisco Partners 

Francisco Partners is a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch over 20 years ago, Francisco Partners has invested in over 400 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. With approximately $45 billion in capital raised to date, the firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information on Francisco Partners, please visit www.Franciscopartners.com. 

About Centerbridge Partners, L.P.  

Centerbridge Partners, L.P. is a private investment management firm employing a flexible approach across investment disciplines – from private equity to credit and related strategies, and real estate – in an effort to find the most attractive opportunities for our investors and business partners. The firm was founded in 2005 and as of August 31, 2022 has approximately $34 billion in capital under management with offices in New York and London. Centerbridge is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams across targeted industry sectors and geographies to help companies achieve their operating and financial objectives. For more information, please visit www.centerbridge.com. 

About Acoustic, L.P. 

Acoustic, L.P. helps businesses close the digital experience gap by giving them a holistic view into the customer experience and enabling them to deliver personalized experiences based on consumer needs and preferences. The Acoustic portfolio of companies helps businesses across industries to grow customer lifetime value with award-winning technology and unbeatable client success teams. 

Learn more about the Acoustic portfolio at www.acoustic.com. 

News

Survey reveals consumer expectations heightened as a result of inflationary price hikes

A survey of over 2,000 working age adults has revealed that the perceived standard of UK customer service is slipping in the wake of record inflation.

Close to half (41%) of the respondents questioned by People 1st International said that the standard of customer service they had received in the last 12-18 months had worsened.

A further 37% were ambivalent towards the standard of customer service on offer, suggesting that ‘skimpflation’ – a phenomenon whereby inflationary pressures and squeezed profit margins force firms to cut corners – is beginning to creep in.

Disinterested staff and chatbots replacing human interactions were amongst the most commonly cited complaints of respondents who thought that the standard of customer service offered by firms is in decline.

On the flipside, when quizzed about what they value most when it comes to customer service, well trained, knowledgeable and happy staff ranked head and shoulders above the rest, with 68% of respondents singling out high quality staff interactions as their number 1 must have.

In light of the forecast that UK inflation will soar to a 50-year high by the end of January next year, cost savings will no doubt be weighing heavily on many businesses’ minds, however, according to Jane Rexworthy, Executive Director at People 1st International, businesses need to consider their customer’s preferences first before making cutbacks.

“Entering the autumn/winter trading period, consumer-facing businesses are confronted with various economic headwinds, the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades.

“For that reason, businesses may well be forced to make stark decisions about where to rein in spending and what needs to be ringfenced.

“In times of recession, training and development budgets are often the target of cost-cutting, but failing to invest in your people can be damaging to business finances in the long-run.” continues Jane.

“Our survey is clear what UK consumers value the most: well trained, knowledgeable and happy staff. With that in mind, I urge consumer facing businesses to continue to invest in their people and carefully consider the impact of any potential cutbacks on the customer experience.”

The finding that 40% of respondents expect higher prices to be reflected in the level of service they receive underlines the importance of maintaining customer service standards adds Jane.

“With real household incomes falling, consumers look set to become more and more discerning, and the businesses best placed to thrive will be those that offer customers the greatest bang for their buck.”

“Businesses’ will therefore need to offer best in class customer service before convincing consumers to part with their hard-earned cash.”

Despite the squeeze on disposable incomes, 43% of respondents agreed that they were willing to pay more for goods and services if they received a high level of customer service, compared to 22% that would not.

Further responding to the results of the survey Jane Rexworthy said that there is a clear incentive for businesses to maintain and even enhance customer service standards despite challenging macro-economic circumstances.

“As consumers cut back, competition hots up, meaning that businesses will need work harder to attract customers.”

“Offering high quality customer service sets businesses apart, meaning that well-trained staff remains a key tool in a business’ arsenal.”

“Consequently, those that continue invest in their people will fare better than their rivals in the coming months, as confirmed by this survey.”

In addition to quality of customer interactions, speedy responses to questions and queries (54%) ranked similarly highly among respondents as a hallmark of winning customer experiences. Free gifts and the opportunity to provide feedback were viewed as comparatively less important by consumers, favoured by 37% and 16% of respondents respectively.

Beyond providing an acid test for customer expectations against the backdrop of inflationary pressures, the survey is a clarion call for businesses to pay more attention to how they cater for and interact with diverse groups, such as the LGBTQ community and those with disabilities.

42% of respondents said they would spend more with a business if it provided an accessible and inclusive service. A further 48% stated that they would not return to a business if it didn’t provide an accessible and inclusive service, whilst 58% of respondents said they would recommend a business to family and friends if their customer service accessible and inclusive.

Marketing, PR and SEO, News

Gekko launches neuroscience insights partnership with CloudArmy

Customer experience marketing agency Gekko has partnered with behavioural insight experts CloudArmy to offer a neuroscience research service for brands to identify what their customers really think. Powered by specialist research agency CloudArmy, the roll out of the offering comes after a successful trial with one of the UK’s leading tech brands.

Gekko are experts in the customer journey and experience and the partnership with CloudArmy sees cutting-edge neuroscience techniques aimed at uncovering unconscious and conscious reactions to test a range of attributes. This includes brand recognition, responses to brand assets and associations and shifts in brand perception.

CloudArmy’s global online methodology allows brands to reach audiences anywhere at any time, faster than in-lab neuroscience research. Their tests measure responses at the millisecond scale with the highest levels of accuracy and robustness. Using smartphones to test stimuli and rapid responses and lexical decision making, this research is able to remove bias often seen in opinion studies to reveal peoples’ actual beliefs.

The trial of the product saw more than 200 respondents take part in a study, undertaking a series of tasks focused on looking at a technology brand against its competitive set, assessing perceptions on branding, visual identity and how it sits in the minds of consumers. The results help to offer a clear road map of what needs to change to alter perceptions and therefore sales. This insight gained will help Gekko advise brands on how, for example, brands can adapt their in-store displays and messaging to better appeal to shoppers as well as adapting the training provided to retail staff to help sell a brand’s products more effectively.

According to Daniel Todaro, Managing Director of Gekko: “We are delighted to announce this pioneering service, combining our expertise in retail customer journeys and experiences with CloudArmy’s neuroscience insights. Neuroscience is the new frontier of understanding human behaviour and this technology truly enables brands to uncover the truth about what customers really think about your brand, as opposed to what they might say. Our initial trial revealed some powerful and unexpected actionable insights for a leading tech brand. This will enable them to adapt their strategy to build brand loyalty and drive sales.”

Thom Noble, President of CloudArmy adds: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Dan and his talented team to collaborate on deeper-level evaluation and optimization of strategy and design. We believe the blending of science-based approaches helps augment the creativity of interventions to deliver more compelling and powerful experiences and behavioural nudges.”

To learn more about Gekko, please visit: https://www.gekko-uk.com/

ESG/CSR, News

Robert Dyas and DFS commercialise their approach to ESG focusing on reducing energy consumption, increasing revenue and enhancing employee wellbeing

Leading retailers Robert Dyas and DFS have commercialised their approach to ESG with Robert Dyas achieving a 30 per cent reduction in electricity consumption and DFS realising a 28 per cent reduction as well as DFS benefiting from enhanced employee wellbeing and customer experience.

With rising energy costs and an increased focus on environmental impact many organisations are looking for ways to operationalise their approach to ESG but are stalling at implementation. Working with Beyond ESG both retailers have implemented an innovative, data-led approach which turns stores and offices into ‘data rigs’ through leading edge sensor technology and building management software. This combined with world class data science capabilities converts prosaic energy consumption information into actionable data insight.

The data insight enables Beyond ESG to optimise schedules and controls which manage:

  • Power and lighting usage to reduce environmental impact and minimise energy costs by up to 30 per cent
  • Air quality and ambient temperatures to enhance staff and customer wellbeing as well as boosting employee productivity
  • Usage and traffic flows enabling enhanced space utilisation and product placement. This can result in improved customer experience adding incremental revenue to the bottom line.

Comments Charlotte Walker, Finance Director, Robert Dyas:

“The commercialised approach means that the project has been self-funding almost from the start. The team’s energy and experience has galvanised the internal team to realise a 30 per cent reduction in energy usage across our retail stores and has provided us with an opportunity to reduce our impact on the environment at the same time. The project has been straightforward to implement and has given us a platform to monitor our environmental impact and energy costs at the touch of a button!”

Says Angeline Griffin, Head of Property Services, DFS Group Plc:

“ESG is now embedded within our business strategy and we are converting intention into action by this investment. The structured and programmatic approach to this project has allowed us to unlock a wealth of unrealised potential in a short space of time. We are so far tracking at 28 per cent savings on power consumption as well as realising commercial benefits that the insight has unlocked.”

Adds Nick Robinson, Managing Partner, Beyond ESG:

“Our unique approach to ESG turns obligation into opportunity by shrinking energy costs, reducing capital expenditure, minimising OpEx and diminishing legal and regulatory interventions. At the same time through advanced analytics it generates incremental revenue by optimising the shop floor and improves the working environment for employees – whilst simultaneously reducing the burden on the environment. This is good for climate change, good for the business, good for the customers and good for the employees. A win, win, win, win scenario!”

Beyond ESG is a new company comprising three best in class providers: Beyond: Putting Data to Work Ltd (data specialists), Global Associates (building management experts) and NJRobinson (Industry Practitioners). It has been founded following the success of its work with launch clients Robert Dyas and DFS. It’s guiding principles are community and collaboration to enable efficiency and agility and smash through the barriers associated with ESG operationalisation.

Energy, News

Spain’s new customer service legislations should be a wake-up call for UK utilities companies, says Quadient

Last week, it emerged that the Spanish government has approved a draft bill to transform customer service standards for companies. The legislation would set a three-minute limit for companies to attend to customers’ phone calls, and give consumers the right to speak with a person, not a chatbot. The bill would particularly impact utilities providers, who will have to respond to all client complaints within two hours. 

While UK companies might be inclined to think the new legislation isn’t relevant to them, this is far from the case, according to customer communications expert Quadient. Andrew Stevens, Industry Principal at Quadient, argues, “Spain’s move to dramatically improve customer services and experience is rightly generating international headlines. Even if the UK Government doesn’t follow suit, utilities companies need to take note.”

As Stevens identifies, customer experience is more important now than ever. “In the midst of the cost of living crisis, consumers will be desperate to get hold of their suppliers to query or lower bills. Companies need to step up to the plate and give customers the information they need in prompt fashion.”

Quadient’s recent Freedom of Information request to the Information Commissioner’s Office highlights that utilities companies are doing worse than ever when it comes to customer service. The data shows that the utilities sector was one of the worst offenders for spam calls and texts last year, with complaints more than doubling.

Stevens describes, “Calls, texts and chatbots all have their place in customer experience management, but the Spanish proposal drills home the importance of thinking about which channel will be the most useful in which situation, and how to make the chosen channel accessible.” 

Stevens continues, “With so many people struggling right now, the last thing consumers want is to have their time wasted, or to be bombarded with irrelevant questions. Instead, companies should be prioritising getting answers to questions as quickly as possible.” 

Business, News

Wolseley deploys a new one-stop eBilling system to deliver a frictionless digital customer experience

Technology from Macro 4 will provide email and self-service access to around 1.4 million new documents a month while improving the customer experience

 

Crawley, UK, June 7, 2022 – Wolseley, the leading supplier of plumbing, heating and cooling products, with 500 branches throughout the UK, plans to encourage all its customers to switch to eBilling this year thanks to a new one-stop solution implemented in partnership with Macro 4, a division of UNICOM® Global. The new system offers comprehensive self-service facilities and an improved customer experience.

 

Already within six months, 14,500 customers who were using Wolseley’s older third-party eBilling service have switched to the new Macro 4 system. The objective over the next 12 months is to transition the rest of its paper-based billing customers to digital.

 

“We produce around 1.4 million invoicing and proof of delivery (POD) documents for our customers every month,” said Roger Connett, CTO at Wolseley. “It’s much more efficient all round to make this information available digitally rather than on paper, and of course there is a huge cost and environmental benefit. Macro 4 has helped us to show customers that it’s a better alternative by making the eBilling process frictionless and a pleasure to use.”

 

Previously Wolseley had outsourced its eBilling to a third-party document management company. However, only around a third of invoices were being sent electronically and getting more customers to switch was proving difficult. It was felt that a more user-friendly service that offered greater functionality to customers would encourage take-up by customers.

 

Part of the issue was that previously only outstanding invoices could be viewed online via self-service and even these disappeared from the system once they were paid. PODs were not available online at all, which was unhelpful for customers wanting to keep track of their finances.

 

The limited self-service also led to staff in Wolseley’s branches spending significant time and effort handling customer requests for email and paper copies of documents – especially PODs.

 

The new eBilling solution is based on Macro 4’s Columbus enterprise information management software. It is designed to be simple and easy to use with an improved customer experience and a user-friendly registration process to encourage adoption.

 

Customers can sign up to the eBilling service, which Wolseley has branded eDocuments (eDocs) on the Wolseley website: www.wolseley.co.uk. They can choose to have their documents automatically emailed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and they also have access to a self-service portal on Wolseley’s site where they can view all their invoices, credit notes, statements and PODs for the last seven years.

 

“Many customers have commented on how easy the new system is to use, as well as how convenient it is to view invoices and corresponding PODs in one place,” said Roger. “There is a marked improvement in the overall customer experience.”

 

New customers are now automatically signed up to paperless billing and Wolseley is confident that with the improved functionality and better experience delivered by the Macro 4 solution the company has the technology and systems in place to meet its digital transformation goal of going fully paperless.

 

Jim Allum, Director, Commercial and Technical from Macro 4 said, “In order to give its customers a strong reason to switch to digital we’ve worked with Wolseley to create a next-generation eBilling system designed to fill the gaps in the service they had previously and provide a fully rounded experience that makes doing business with Wolseley easier.”

 

As more customers sign up, Wolseley expects to reap the full benefits of going digital, including savings in paper and postage and a reduction in the carbon footprint. The company also expects that by making it easy for customers to access documents online there will be fewer payment delays and improved cash flow.